EDITOR'S CHOICE AWARD 2014

Editor's Choice Award goes to Gabriella Brand for “River, stream, brook, mind.” Gabriella Brand's poems, short stories, and essays have appeared in Room Magazine, Cordite, Christian Science Monitor, The Citron Review, 3Elements Review, and other publications. Her work is part of the "Connected" anthology put out by WisingUp Press. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee. Now and then, she undertakes solo spiritual pilgrimages, including walking from France to Spain on the Camino de Santiago, as well as the more challenging 88 Temples of Shikoku, Japan. Gabriella Brand is a lay preacher in the Unitarian tradition, frequently addressing groups in Quebec, New England, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Contact: moulinparoles@gmail.com,  https://sites.google.com/site/gatherthespirit and https://sites.google.com/site/gabriellabrandwordsmith.

River, stream, brook, mind

            by Gabriella Brand
 

Meditation, it’s like getting in a canoe.
So wobbly, at first.
No idea how to navigate,
no idea how to survive a meeting with an iceberg,
a tumble over Niagara Falls,
the free-fall of the mind,
the winding river, the unpredictable waves.

Breathe, says the master. Don’t hold your breath.

But I find myself tightening my life-vest,
and clinging to the sides.

Take it all as it comes, says the master,
the twists, the turns,
the scraping of the hull,
the long portage,
the doldrums and the rapids.

But I keep hitting rocks, I say.

Get rid of the paddle, says the master.

And when I finally do, I float,
buoyant as a plover,
high above the little creek I used to call my head.